


Captive Listener

by Nevanna



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Background Relationships, Conspiracy, Deception, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 16:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16371017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: Alex witnesses Delia's true feelings about her royal admirer.





	Captive Listener

“The prince has written you another verse, hasn’t he?” Roger asks.

Alex looks up from the map that he’s been studying, just in time to see Delia lean back in her chair, pressing one delicate hand against her smirking mouth. Even when mocking her royal admirer behind his back, she takes the greatest of care to pose becomingly. “Do listen to this, my lord,” she says, and reads aloud from a sheet of parchment: _“‘Those emerald orbs doth grant their light – To guide me through the darkest night…’”_ The beginning of the next line melts into a torrent of giggles.

Roger chuckles and moves to stand behind her chair. “You ought to take my cousin’s devotion – however pathetic his attempts at expressing it – as a sign of our success,” he reminds her. “And your eyes _are_ extraordinary; about that, he’s not mistaken.”

The remnants of Alex’s old loyalty to Jonathan still stir at inconvenient moments, and he tries – not always successfully – to conceal those moments from his former knight-master. If he voices any of his doubts, he’ll be lucky if Roger _only_ laughs at him.

He does steal another glance over his shoulder. Roger gazes down at Delia hungrily – Alex has melted under that look, more than once – and raises her fingertips to his mouth. Alex will not leave until he is dismissed, but he suspects that the other two are increasingly less likely to notice if he leaves them.


End file.
